#52
As you know by now I am a bit of an addict of TED talks. Every now and then I come across threads which I weave together in my head and think ‘Wow!’. Today was one of those days. And that is what I would like to share with you now, fellow Life Liners, because I believe in each one of YOU.
There are sayings that are bandied about:
“You’ve got to fall down to get up”
“To be the light, first you have to burn”
“Diamonds are made under pressure”
“The only true limitations are those we impose on ourselves”
…you get the picture.
And I believe the gist of these sayings are true. It often takes bumping into a really big challenge to bring forward the courage to ignite our genius.
There are so many famous examples of this: Vincent Van Gogh, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Fred Astaire, Dr. Seuss, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Sidney Poitier, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan. These are just some of the famous people.
More powerful still for me are the examples I come across of ordinary folk who end up doing extraordinary things. And that was my AHA moment this morning.
So what threads can we take from this and apply to our own lives?
So here is my theory:
- You absolutely need to fall. Sometimes that happens because you deliberately jump, some times life gives you a shove. Why do we need to fall? To forcibly shake us out of the comfort zone we constructed from limiting beliefs about what we think we are capable of. When we fall we force the parachute of our true abilities to open.
- You have to have the will to keep moving forward even after we fall. It can take a while for that parachute to open, but it will..
- When we start to pick ourselves back up, we find ourselves using resources we didn’t know we had. We didn’t know we had them so we believed we didn’t have them. You see how messed up that is! But it rings true doesn’t it?
- It takes courage to stop being the person we think we should be. Or the person we thought other people felt we should be. We are not limited by the range of things we believe we are capable of. When we let go of all that the magic starts.
Here are 2 examples of what I am talking about: each woman is struck by a huge challenge, one finds her true self and her dream by fighting (Amy Purdy), one by letting go of an old fight (Caroline Casey). They both have crazy, beautiful dreams, and they both fulfill them.
Here Are Some Things to Try:
- Think of a time in your life that you fell; that you failed at something, were rejected, or were struck a blow by life. Looking back what did you learn from it, what was the ‘gift’? Knowing you had hidden resources in that situation can give you the confidence to embrace doing anything differently.
- Every time you catch yourself saying or doing something that you feel is expected of you, notice it. What do you really think and feel?
- Try thinking of something you dream of doing? What stands in the way? Now try this: believe that you already know how to get there. The weird thing is you probably do, but just never realized before. For instance, taking a 2 month break and going to Africa and working in an elephant sanctuary! A language course in Italy? Or joining a choir?
